skater43 stitches non-Zelda things

[Firehawke]

These all look so fun! Good luck getting everything figured out...and happy stitching!

[skater43]

Finish one project, we start the next. SGDQ 2026 isn't until June/July, but might as well get this done as long as we're between Zelda projects anyway. And turns out it looks like it's been wise to start this now as it's going to take longer than I previously thought. Part of that is not appreciating how much I have to actually have to stitch in the middle section. And part of that is we've gotten off to a bit of a rough start so far in that twice now already, I've had to undo and redo a significant number of stitches (prolly 50-60 each time). First time, I started the middle picture bit in the wrong spot. And then I skipped a row, so all the grey in the upper left part of what we've stitched had to be redone. So there was at least two hours lost these past 2 1/2 weeks just undoing stuff, not counting the time spent originally stitching, and then having to restitch. Good news is this past week went just fine with no issues, so we were able to get some good progress made. 18 hours in now, through yesterday, and while not all of that was actually stitching, it's all part of the process. Text will be pretty quick (side note: our cloth is a nice pretty blue. In hindsight, I might have liked something a little darker, but this will work. But what is unusual is it is only dyed on one side. Never seen that before. So the backside is white. Which is fine, you aren't
supposed to see that side. However, while white text shows up nicely on blue cloth, it's much harder to see white text on white cloth. So doing the text, checking things on the backside and tucking my thread under and such, it was difficult to see where I was and where I was working. As I say, each project is different in the challenges presented), but we still have a lot to go in the middle bit, so middle/end of November is looking more like when we'll finish this. But that's fine, we have the time. We'll then spend 2-3 weeks doing our quick AGDQ 2027 prize (note on our AGDQ 2026 prize which we turned into the framers a few months ago. They had an issue getting something they needed, so that delayed things, and knowing it wasn't needed
until December, it was put lower on the priority list. Parts have come in now, though, so next couple of weeks maybe I'll get the final product back from them. Got an email from them a couple of days ago asking about a color choice we apparently didn't make when I dropped it off, so that's been answered, so shouldn't be anything else holding them back from finishing it). And then Phantom Hourglass. Haven't made a final decision on a pattern yet, but plan to by the end of this week. So anyone want to offer a suggestion, state their preference, etc., you have this week to plead your case (see my other thread at https://www.spritestitch.com/forum/view ... &start=250 to see the choices). We're still a couple of months away from starting, but I want to have time to make sure the picture picked works as a pattern, figure out colors, gather any threads/supplies I need, and so on.

[Firehawke]

Rude frog, visiting so much! It's looking great! And how odd that the fabric is only dyed on the 1 side!
Hope the framing process goes quickly now!

[skater43]

Yeah, sucks we got off to a rough start, but we've had a good week or so now of solid stitching, so progress is being made. I have the time to make things right, and want it to be right, so definitely worth it to me to undo the mistakes and fix them. And while we lost a few hours, it was still much faster than starting over (not to mention I'd have to order/acquire more cloth which would take a couple of weeks). The grey is my outline for the most part, so past few days has been filling in with black. Bunch we can do still, then we'll fill in some with the light blue. Not sure next update there will be much to look at yet/anything really identifiable, but at least we'll have more colors.

Yeah, fabric dyed on only one side was new to me, but guess it cuts down on production costs? I mean, one side is blue, which is all I care about, so it works.

Expect to get my AGDQ prize back the next couple of weeks or so, but we'll see. Just the nature of things, wouldn't expect Spirit Tracks done until the end of October/early November, but see how it goes and if there's any delays in getting the frame or anything like that. AGDQ 2026 isn't until the first week of January, so I get it back by early/mid December, I'm still good. And Spirit Tracks is for me, so no time deadline.

[blackmageheart]

generally when I've seen fabric "dyed" on one side it's been printed, I have a few of these and they are nice although they do have a slightly different feel to regular dyed stuff. but it allows for the most amazing custom backgrounds!

[skater43]

The more you know. As I said, really, I only need color on one side. Because these get framed, no one ever sees the backside. Sure some projects you'd want the background color on both sides of the fabric, but daresay generally one side is sufficient.

Realized I'd missed picking a couple of colors for this project, but grabbed my bag o' threads and should be able to find stuff that'll work. I absolutely have to stop by Michael's to buy a color I can, but doubt it'll come to that. Or worst case scenario of having to order something. Good news is there's plenty to stitch around these colors, so this isn't holding things up.

Alas, had to correct another mistake. Ended up doing some cutting the backside and tying things down in the back, rather than fully undoing all the stitches to correct things. It was 9, 10 horizontal stitches atop a section and unfortunately, I'd stitched things vertically there. So to take out those 10 stitches would have meant undoing well over 100. So back maybe isn't quite as clean and pretty as usual, but think I did a pretty good job of using the new stitches to cover things. And on the front, everything looks hunky-dory, which is the important part. This project really isn't more complicated than Spirit Tracks or Minish Cap or some of my other big complex projects, so not sure why we're struggling here, but we'll get through it.

[skater43]

Another bit of a setback this week as mentioned above, but overall, progress is being made. We're now 32 hours in, through yesterday, and as we can see, we've moved the hoop. From here, we'll be able to finish the text on the bottom as well as continue the middle stuff. I think we'll be able to go all the way to the right edge of the picture from here, but I haven't counted things out yet. And the middle stuff isn't looking like much yet, but I keep working here (as opposed to taking a couple days to do the text), we should start to see our hero emerge and maybe some of the bottom of the cauldron/vat/whatever we're throwing the cheese in. Need to figure out a couple of colors for our hero still, but I've got lots, so that shouldn't be an issue. And after today's stitch time, I'll have some stitches next to where he will be, so I can compare actual threads with one another and such. The other big color debate I'm having is whether to get a darker blue to do the background of the cheese. Because the cloth isn't as dark as I really wanted, it is rather similar to the neonish blue we're using for most of the middle part. Originally, I'd planned not to stitch the cheese background because it's supposed to be the same color as the background of the top text (which is taken from the game and the basis for picking that as the background/cloth color for the picture). I have several blues, so finding one to work again shouldn't be a problem and texture-wise, might look better than a gap of unstitched stuff. Should be able to get the cheese at least started from this hoop, but we'll see where we stand once we get more of this middle stuff stitched. Which admittedly would go faster if I wasn't having to correct my mistakes. But we're getting there.

And in other exciting news, I have decided on which picture I am going to stitch for Phantom Hourglass. Working with our own BMH to pattern it up (see https://www.spritestitch.com/forum/view ... 15&t=36756 to follow the process). But this gives a good indication which game it is from/a lot of what Phantom Hourglass is about. Had a couple of variations of this and went with this with the white background as that will simplify things and while the background stuff was nice, it didn't add much if you will. So still a ways out from working on this, but we have the ball rolling. Have plenty of white cloth, so just a matter of figuring out what colors I need and then acquiring them.

[skater43]

Things are coming along and starting to take shape. Funny, things go faster/easier when I'm not having to undo/redo mistakes. But we're 47 hours in including today. Which doesn't actually include today since I haven't/won't be stitching today, but I did an hour and a half Friday and yesterday to make up for it, knowing I wasn't going to have any time to stitch today (church, concert, work makes for a full day). But that keeps our average at an hour a day. But we've got a good chunk of the middle section done now. We've stitched our hero, Graham, so we actually have something tangible/distinctive to look at and identify. The red of his clothes and the light blue were two of the colors I forgot to pick out at the start, but found stuff I had, so got those done. Picking a navyish blue for the background for our cheese icon still needs to be done at this point, but I have lots of blues, so I'm not worried about that. And I want to fill in some of the bubble/cauldron/whatever we're throwing the cheese in, just so I can compare actual thread colors with what's in the picture/being used and all.

This week, we'll finish off the bottom half of the middle section (actually closer to 2/3 or so. There's only 12, 13 stitches above Graham's hat to go). I will have to move the hoop slightly right to get the very lower right corner stitches, but I can do that down the road a bit. Actually, what I might do is finish off the bottom text the next couple of days, and then see if I can move the hoop in such a way as to get all of the middle section in one hoop top to bottom, so I can hit that bottom right corner, but also get the rest of the right edge up to the upper right corner. So that'll be the rough plan for the next week+. So next update, we'll likely have the middle section at least laid out so we can see what we have to do/fill in. Most of the top part of the middle section is one color, so that'll go relatively quickly. Then the text up top. Finish the end of November? Seems a bit ambitious, but early December seems doable. Then we knock out or AGDQ 2027 prize to finish out the year and I guess we'll kick off 2026 with Phantom Hourglass.

[Firehawke]

So much fun watching this grow...and it's growing quickly!

[skater43]

Thank you. We are getting there. Quite a bit to go, but as I said, I expect the top half of the middle section to go relatively quickly. And we have a fair amount of text up top, but that moves along, too. Finished the bottom text today and moved the hoop and yep, we can get the whole middle section in the hoop top to bottom. So I've finished the bottom right corner and eventually, we'll be able to do the rest of the right side and along the top. I'll need to move the hoop left to do the rest of the middle section, but I should be able to position it so that I can start doing some of the top text, too.